Agriculture group visits Panhandle on two-year tour

Friday

LUBBOCK - A select group of Texans with diverse backgrounds in agriculture - including several South Plains residents - is traveling the state and beyond to become leaders in the industry.

The 26 participants of class XII of the Texas Agricultural Lifetime Leadership program toured the region Tuesday and Wednesday to get a view of agriculture unique to the South Plains and Texas Panhandle, including cotton, sorghum, peanuts and dairy.

Six of those participants, in the program sponsored by the Texas AgriLife Extension, were from Brownfield, Lubbock and Ropesville.

TALL is a two-year program in which men and women travel throughout the state, the country and even parts of the world to gain a greater understanding of the state's vast agriculture and issues affecting the industry.

"We face political challenges all the time from people who don't understand what production agriculture is all about," said Jim Hunt, district sales manager in the agriculture division of Netafim in Lubbock. "We need to have as many people as possible be advocates of agriculture."

However, the education does not end with those TALL participants; that knowledge should be passed on in their workplaces, communities, local schools and commodity groups, said Jim Mazurkiewicz, TALL leadership program director.

"This program is about leadership enhancement for each of the individuals," he said. "But they also have a responsibility to give back to the state of Texas and share the knowledge and resources that they have learned from others."

During every quarter in that two-year period, the participants will meet at a total of eight travel sessions, including a two-week trip in India.

The first session kicked off in July in College Station; the South Plains was only the second session, but participants said that so far, the experience has been very rewarding.

Mike Metzig, a Ropesville native and vice president of Ag Texas Farm Credit Services, said through the program he will be able to glean the information about other industries from speakers and tours in the TALL sessions and translate it into his lending business as well as his community.

"The knowledge from what I'm seeing will help me greatly," he said. "The benefits - there's no telling how great they will be. It just kind of opens our horizons to agriculture and being a leader in agriculture."

Hunt said that although he has lived in Lubbock for two years, there were several places he had never seen until he joined the program.

On Wednesday, it was the first time he toured the American Cotton Growers denim mill in Littlefield and Legacy Farms Dairy in Plainview.

The program also provided a means for participants to learn about other aspects of the industry from one another and build relationships.

People may not immediately realize how much they have in common until they start talking about what they do, Mazurkiewicz said.

This year, the program had 61 eligible people in its applicant pool - the highest number of applicants to date, said Mazurkiewicz.

Interested participants had to apply for admission, explain their reason for their applying and exhibit leadership potential.

The group was in Amarillo Thursday to complete its second session.

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